Sunday, September 7, 2014

Day Three: The Metro

Let me first start off by saying that most of the comparisons city-wise I will be doing on this blog will be to New York City, mostly because Livingston, the town I'm from, isn't a city and there is nothing to do there. So with that being said, lets talk the Metro in Madrid.


I'm going to make a statement that is only going to sound bold to the people who have never had the pleasure of taking the subway in NYC: The Metro in Madrid is literally better than NYC subway is every single possible way but one. It is seriously like night and day. Here's a list of reasons why:

1. It's clean. That seems to be the running theme of Madrid in general from what I've seen. Now this isn't to say there isn't garbage on the streets here and there but in comparison to NY, Madrid is spotless.
2. It is always on time and one train is never too far behind the other. Seriously, this is golden. I'm sure there will be instances where the train is running late here but from what I've seen that will be few and far in between. Missed your train? No problemo, another one will be right behind it in 10 minutes of less. 
3. Air conditioned. Something you can't really avoid in subways whether it be NYC or Madrid is that it is usually hot(ter) at the station waiting for your train. But for the New York subway that temperature doesn't always change that much once you hop onto the train itself where the metro here is like a breath of fresh air when walking in.

Ok so here is the one semi-major flaw of the metro in Madrid. It shuts down at 1:30am and doesn't open back up until 6:00am. Dafuq? Maybe this makes sense during the week, I mean you're working right? How late are you actually gonna be out for. But the Spaniards LOVE to party on the weekends and seeing as most bar/clubs don't open until around 12:00/1:00am and don't usually close until around 6:00am why would stop the most popular way of transportation around a time where everyone is out? Now you can pay 56 euros to get an unlimited monthly pass for the metro and the bus (awesome!) so as someone who wants to travel and see all of Madrid that is pretty damn amazing. But 56 euros aint cheap and neither is having to pay 11 euros to take a taxi home every weekend. I mean the other alternative is to stay out until 6:00am (which I did last night) Which is great to do sometimes but not really great for your body all the time. Not all subways continuously ran in NYC at all hours but some did and if you needed to get home 4 in the morning you could.

So what's my verdict? Madrid metro is just a better subway experience in the NYC.


The heat has been pretty difficult to deal with here at times.  Especially when sleeping because the overall temperature doesn't drop too low at night time. I'm talking high 90's day time and mid 70's night time. Now this is exactly what I wanted, to live somewhere that was warm and I love it but I don't think my body has yet adapted to the climate change yet. I wake up in the morning along with a good portion of my day feeling fatigue and sweaty. Kind of an icky feeling if you ask me but this weather isn't gonna be lasting that much longer so I am trying to embrace it while it's still here.

Knowing how tired I was because of the heat I decided I wasn't going to do much today until the night time so I can relax and attempt to get as well rested as possible before going out and getting my drink.

The first thing I end up doing was around 9:00pm with a friend and it was El Museo Arte Publico which was a free outside sculpture art museum located at an underpass of a highway. Every piece was pretty extraordinary and complicated looking and a great way to kill some time before heading out.

A wonderfully made flowing water fall



This was my favorite piece. It gets super complex towards the middle.









Straight hanging statue chillin

One of the buildings near the museo just had a gigantic wall of blue led strips. Was cool to look at.

Originally I was gonna end this post with my thoughts on my first club experience but I have decide to hold off and wait until I have one or two more experience with different clubs in Madrid to form a fair opinion.





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